A Different Start
by realistic-myth
Summary: What if the flock met in an orphanage instead of the school? What if Max, Iggy, and Fang had to raise the rest of the flock themselves at age twelve? What if they went on the run earlier?
1. the blind, the emo, and histories

i dont own maximum ride

Okay I don't really care how you got a hold of this so just sit back and enjoy. So now that's done I guess its intros. My name is Maximum Martinez, but I like to be called Maximum Ride. I am twelve years old. I live in an orphanage and I have all my life.

The orphanage is a run down place in Arizona. The paint is peeling and the sign in the front is missing some letters. It has three stories. The kids live in the first and second floors and the third is where I sleep. You must be thinking oh that's so great, but it's not it has cobwebs and dust bunnies everywhere! The owner of the place keeps me secluded because I have wings on my back and doesn't want me mixing with the other children. The owners name is Anne.

I don't really like her that much. Did I mention that she likes to lock me in here for hours? And it just so happens that today was no different. I was in my room thinking of ways to sneak downstairs and grab dinner when the door opened. It was Anne. "Great!" I thought she's here to yell at me for having wings on my back. As if it was my fault! I've had them as long as I can remember.

I didn't notice she had two boys in her grip until she pushed them inside the room where they landed with a thump. "Even more freaks." She muttered. "Maxine be a dear and show these boys how it works around here" she said. "It's Maximum" I snarled. "Whatever" she said as she closed the door.

I got a good look at the boys. One was wearing all black with black hair and brown eyes. The other one was wearing a green shirt and blue jeans with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. "So what kind of mutants are you?" I asked nonchalantly.

"How do you know we're mutants?" the emo one asked. "Either your mutants or Anne REALLY doesn't like you." I said. What do you mean?" the pale one asked. I sighed and jumped off my bed. "I'm two percent avian. Anne, the woman you just met, doesn't want a mutant bothering the other children."

"We're two percent avian too. Oh I'm igneous and that's nick but likes to be called fang" igneous said. "Do you like being called igneous or can I call you Iggy?" I asked. "No, I hate the name so sure. My name is now Iggy!" he said then posed, badly I might add. I laughed." Oh, and I'm maximum but you can call me max" I said, "now help me grab your mattresses" I ordered. "Where are they?" Iggy asked. "Over there" I pointed over to the corner. "He's blind" fang said to me." To your right" he said to Iggy.

Eventually we got the mattresses on two of the empty beds. "So tell me about yourselves " I said trying to make a conversation. "You first" fang shot back. "You're not very open are you? Well my name is maximum Martinez but I'm going to change it to maximum ride when I get out of this place. I'm twelve years old. I've been here as long as I can remember. My wings speckled with brown, white, and a creamy like color." I said as I spread my wings to their 10 ft. of glory.

Iggy nodded and said "well I've been in different orphanages all my life and I met fangles here at the last orphanage. I'm about twelve too and I've been told that I have (insert Iggy's wing color here) colored wings" he spread his wings too.

Fang sighed but said" I've been in only two orphanages including this one. I got kicked out at the last one because Iggy set off a bomb in the kitchen and we got blamed. Not that I'm complaining, that place was horrible. I have black wings." He said as he unfurled his wings.

Halfway through fangs little speech Iggy's jaw dropped. "what?" I asked him. "That is the longest thing I've heard him say at one time" he answered. "So I'm guessing that you're not the most talkative person in the world" I teased. He just scowled at me.

After that we became the best of friends. Little did we know that right under our feet that a phone call was underway, about us and some new friends that we would soon meet .

review! should i continue?


	2. the fashionista

Thanks for the reviews! Only my mom went all weird on me saying oh I'm so proud and stuff like that. Oh and I don't own maximum ride.

Over the next week everything was normal or as normal as 3 mutants living in an attic can be. It involved fang sneaking down and getting food , it turned out he can turn invisible, Iggy learning the layout of the room surprisingly fast, Iggy setting bombs off downstairs (mostly on Anne), everyone laughing when we hear her high pitched scream, Anne storming up to yell at us (which we can't hear over our laughing) for ruining her "brilliant" hairstyle. We each fell into our own routines. I became the leader half because I was (or at least looked) older and partly because I knew most everything that ticked Anne off. (Remember I have lived here all my life)

Nothing really noteworthy happened until today. I was jumping up and down on my bed to make the kids under me go complain their whiney little buts to Anne, Iggy was fiddling with things (probably a bomb), and fang was practicing his invisibility so it doesn't go out in the middle of one of his escapades for food.(its happened before) I suddenly heard the click of the lock on the door, everyone stopped what they were doing and tried to look unsuspicious . Anne opened the door and looked highly annoyed. Then I noticed the girl she had with her. She was about 9 years old. She was black and had very wild, long, dark brown hair.

Anne pushed the girl inside and closed the door quickly. I wonder what's with all the new roommates. I thought. I helped the girl up and said "what's your name, girly?"

I wasn't usually this nice but the girl looked like she was going to cry. "I don't have one, but everyone calls me nudge." She sniffled. "Why?" fang asked. Still the man of many words, I see. Nudge seemed to get the skip back into her step because she said more confidently "my friends used to say all they had to do is nudge me to get me to talk. They also said I'm the nudge channel all nudge all the time! So where can I sleep? I don't really mind sharing a bed, but I don't think it would be that comfortable. OMG! Where are my manners? What are your names? Do you have wings? Because that horrible lady said I would be rooming with some of my own kind! So I'm guessing your it!" she was going to say more but Iggy clamped a hand over her mouth.

Then said "okay? I can see where you got your nickname! Well help you get your mattress from over there onto an empty bed. We won't be sharing beds. Yes we have wings and we'll all get to know each other after that."

While we were heaving the mattress over to an empty bed, nudge went on and on about herself. So I learned that she was given to an orphanage when she was born and was adopted (they didn't know about the wings) by a single mom who recently died. She was flown (on an airplane stupid I just said they didn't know about her wings) over here to Arizona by some science representative she guessed, he had on a white coat. When she got here she was treated nicely until the scientist guy left. I guess Anne recognized the bulge of the wings on her back. So then she was thrown in here.

I introduced myself and my history. Fang and Iggy followed, but I noticed fang used less words to explain himself. Nudge nodded as she took this in. she then noticed the state of our clothes." OMG what happened to your clothes!"She screeched at me. It was true my clothes looked horrible. If I ever did something really bad to Anne (a girl needs to be entertained!) I had to go through the orphanage and clean. So i had wears and tears everywhere. Oh and throw in some stains too.

i didn't even have time to answer as she tried to make me as fashionable as possible. She rolled up my pant legs to remove view of the stain on my knees. I had on a long shirt that went down to my hips, which she tore just above my bellybutton to get rid of the stains of where I wiped the grime off my hands.

I got a good look at myself. I looked good with a little hint of don't mess with me message going on. "Well it looks like we know who the future fashion designer is." I said as I looked at her smiling face. She was already growing on me.

re...


	3. the angel hidden by the gasman?

Nudge definitely kept away all the silence, awkward or not. Apparently she made it her duty to make our ears bleed, so basically the opposite of fang. He steers clear of her, which I find kind of funny since we're all in the same room.

She decided the attic needed a makeover. She clawed her way through an old closet door that had been stuck shut with her she-devil nails. Inside were some old paint buckets and fabric. Oh goody. There was also a sewing machine. Nudge practically screamed with joy when she saw this. I rubbed my ear. "I'm guessing you know how to work that thing?", I said.

She just stared at me as if saying, "how could you not?!" I held up my hands in surrender. "I thought you said something about a makeover?", I said trying to change the subject. Nudge then noticed she was wasting time on me when she could be obsessing about the layout of the room.

"Oh yeah! Maybe we can paint fang's side of the room black, and Iggy's some shade of red (for explosions), and max's a blue of some sorts. Of course we'd have to mix some colors to get the shades right. And maybe we could use the fabric as a curtain and use the sewing machine to hem the sides…" she then went on blabbering about stuff only a nudge could understand.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. I could hear Anne coming up the stairs, so I jumped up and shoved the fabrics in the closet and shut the door. I then made myself look as if I was just looking out the window. The others tried to look as if they didn't just pry open a door that had always been shut, and could possibly contain something we're not supposed to see. Fang and Iggy struck up a conversation, but nudge still had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. I doubt Anne would even notice, but we would have to work on that for future purposes.

CLICK. The door opened and in came a boy and a bundle of blankets with a baby inside, I couldn't see if it was a boy or girl. Anne gently tugged the boy in while carrying the baby. Well at least she was human enough not to hurt a toddler and a baby. Anne looked at all of us, but when she got to nudge she quickly glanced at the newly discovered closet to make sure it was closed. I narrowed my eyes. She must have seen the guilty look and suspected she did something. It looks like someone was going to search the closet tonight. (Namely me).

She walked over to me and put the baby in my hands, which I now realized it was a girl. "You'll take care of her, Maxine." I scowled. "It's maximum." I growled. She flinched subtly, but I still saw it. I smirked triumphantly. She headed back to the door. I stopped her by saying, "Anne?" she turned around. Are you done abandoning mutants on me? Or do you have to ruin more people's lives?" I said icily. She smirked as if she knew something I didn't. Which knowing her she probably did. "Yes _Maxine_ we're done." She smiled evilly. I turned her words over in my mind. She said _we_ so she's not alone. She has more people that probably know about us and our wings. Dang it!

As I heard her walk down the stairs I turned to the group. It appeared that only fang and Iggy had caught the double meaning to her words.

I bent down to the little boy's height. "So what's your name?" I asked nicely, as not to scare him. He looked at me clearly frightened of us. "I don't have one." He said lowly clearly embarrassed. I smiled at him. "Well we're going to have to fix that aren't we?" I asked playfully.

He smiled and nodded. I turned to Iggy and Fang who were both standing there awkwardly. "I have a job for you two", I smiled mischievously. Iggy immediately perked up. "Oh, and what would that be oh great one.", he bowed to prove his point. I rolled my eyes. "Since you have nothing better to do you will come up with a name for him." I said as I gestured to the boy. Seeing no objection with either of them I continued, "As I trust you at least a little bit I will give you free reign over this little 'assignment'." Both older boys glanced at each other and Iggy said, "are you sure you want to do this?" I smiled. "Absolutely not, but life is too short to live on the safe side. And it looks like he likes you already." I said pointing at the little boy. He was staring at Iggy in wonder. For what? I will never know.

I headed over to nudge to see what she was doing. "Hey do you think she has a name?" nudge asked me. "I highly doubt it since the boy didn't have one." Nudge smiled sadly," is it bad that I'm kind of happy that she doesn't have one because I wanted the privilege?" nudge asked, seriously or jokingly I don't know. I took a peek at her. My jaw dropped. She looked like an angel. She had pretty blonde hair that was curled with ringlets. What added on to the picture was the porcelain like skin and baby blue eyes. "Oh my god she's adorable." I said in awe, I'd never seen a baby look that beautiful, bird-kid or not.

"Wow, she looks like she dropped from heaven." I said in awe. Nudge smiled and nodded. "She's gonna be a heartbreaker." She said wisely. I just nodded along as nudge was the expert on the subject of boys. "Let's name her that." Nudge said suddenly. I looked at her questioningly. "You said she looks like an angel so let's name her that!" she said excitedly. I shrugged there was nothing wrong with the name. "Okay, we'll name her angel."

I went over to the group of boys to tell them the news. I was a couple feet away when the boys excluding the little one fell down coughing with tears streaming down their cheeks. The little one was giggling madly. I was confused, what happened? That was when the stench hit me. I coughed and ran over to the closet with nudge close behind me. We got the door open and jumped inside and closed it swiftly behind it. We started breathing deeply to keep the stink out of our systems. "What in the world was that?" she shuddered. "I don't know and I don't think I want to know." Suddenly there was a pounding on the door. "Don't leave us alone with Gazzy!" fang yelped. Yep, actually yelped. I was as surprised as you are. "What happened to no man left behind?" Iggy added on. "First of all I don't know a Gazzy and second of all the no man left behind rule does not count when you are about to pass out from toxic stench." I shot back. I was SO not opening the door with it still smelling that. "Oh, Gazzy is that new little kid, Anne brought in." fang answered. "Wait if you named him Gazzy does that mean that smell came from him?!" nudge asked hysterically. She really didn't deal well with this kind of thing.

"Oh god…" could be heard from through the door. THUMP. I could hear someone falling or tripping I couldn't be sure. "And another one bites the dust", fang said sarcastically. "Iggy passed out", I guessed. Yeah it was that bad. Fang grunted. I took that as a yes. Nudge handed me some leftover fabric and said, "Tonight's going to be a long night." I took the fabric from her and tried to form a make-shift cradle. It wasn't made well but it was better than nothing.


End file.
